EAST STROUDSBURG — Gov. Ed Rendell said legalizing video poker machines could help thousands of Pennsylvania families pay for college tuition starting this fall.

ADAM McNAUGHTON

EAST STROUDSBURG — Gov. Ed Rendell said legalizing video poker machines could help thousands of Pennsylvania families pay for college tuition starting this fall.

"Some of our opponents in the Legislature say, 'The governor wants to expand gambling,' Rendell said during a speech at East Stroudsburg University on Thursday. "Well, truth be told, we're not expanding video gaming. Video poker exists. If you go into most restaurants, taverns or diners, somewhere in there you'll find video poker machines."

The plan comes as part of the governor's budget proposal and would allow students entering any of the state's 14 universities and 14 community colleges to become eligible for up to $7,600 in financial aid. All students would pay at least $1,000 per year under the plan.

To pay for those grants, establishments with liquor licenses will be able to apply for as many as five video poker machines, and revenue the state collects from those machines will go to fund college tuition grants to low- and moderate-income families, Rendell told about 75 people inside ESU's Hoeffner Science and Technology Center.

The speech was moved into the center's planetarium after a standing-room-only crowd of students — protesting the university's handling of an alleged sex scandal — filed into the original speech location.

The tuition-aid program will be open to families with incomes under $100,000, Rendell said, with aid based on family need. College tuition grants are expected to cost $140 million this fall when college freshmen become eligible for aid. The program will expand as each incoming class of freshmen becomes eligible. By the time the program is fully operational, it will collect $534 million in video poker revenue each year and aid about 170,000 students, Rendell said.

"Every family who earns less than $100,000 will be eligible for this," Rendell said. "Some families, who earn $95,000 but have four or five kids in school, will be eligible for as much as a family that makes $40,000 and has one child in college. It applies to middle-class families as well as poor families."

Slots casinos like Mount Airy Casino Resort in Paradise Township would not experience a drop in business, the governor said, because those casinos already compete with illegal video poker machines.

If the Pennsylvania Tuition Relief Act is approved by the Legislature, state police will be responsible for removing Pennsylvania's estimated 17,000 illegal video poker machines. The state will then make video poker machines available to establishments that apply for them. State revenue estimates assume that 8,800 establishments will seek an average of four machines each.